Altron reports profit boost after selling subsidiaries, ATM business

Altron has published its annual results for the year ended 29 February 2024, revealing a revenue decline of 2% and a swing from a R13 million profit to a R141 million loss. However, the company said it is performing much better than these numbers suggest.

Its revenue dropped from R10.85 billion in 2022/23 to R10.33 billion in 2023/24. At the same time, its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) is down 6%.

It reported an EBITDA figure of R985 million in 2023/24, down from R1.05 billion in 2022/23.

Altron noted that it offloaded several subsidiaries, including its automated teller machine (ATM) business, Altron Documents Solutions, Altron Nexus, and Altron Rest of Africa.

It reported figures excluding these aspects of its business to show that the company’s finances are solid.

Focusing on only its continuing operations, Altron reported that net profit grew from R296 million to R433 million — a jump of 46%.

This is when comparing the previous year’s results that included its ATM business to this year when excluding all discontinued operations.

EBITDA increased by 20% from R1.25 billion to R1.5 billion.

“We are guided by a clear strategy to become the leading platform and IT services business in our chosen markets,” said Werner Kapp, CEO of Altron.

“Our execution of this strategy resulted in a pleasing 36% increase in headline earnings per share from our continuing operations.”

Regarding selling its ATM hardware and support business, Altron concluded the sale to NCR in July 2023.

It said it would continue to operate its remaining portfolios, including retail solutions, end-user computer support, cloud platform, and software solutions.

“The final purchase consideration will be the net asset value of the business, excluding debtors, on 30 June 2023,” it said.

“Altron retains ownership of the debtors book at 30 June 2023, which will be collected in the ordinary course of business as part of the deal terms.”

Kapp said they were pleased that NCR now manages Altron’s ATM hardware and support business.